W NLIKE most plant families the Poppies seem to have 
no black sheep within their fold, no poor and weedy 
members to be kept out of sight; indeed, the very least 
■usr V' among them is possessed of so gay a charm, that it is 
regarded with delight wherever its vivacious blooms are seen. 
Nevertheless, save for the numerous annual forms derived from 
P. Rhoeas and P. somniferum, and the various showy hybrids 
of P. orientale, the family is very poorly represented in gardens, 
and several good annual species ignored. 
The seed of annual Poppies should be sown as early in the 
season as possible in the place where the plants are to flower as 
it is not possible to transplant them with any certainty of suc- 
cess. The biennial and perennial sorts also dislike disturbance 
but if removal takes place when the plants are very small the 
risk is slight. 1 believe it may be said of few Poppies that they 
are reliably perennial with us, whatever may be their character 
at home, but their chances of continuance may certainly be 
increased by raising them from seed, planting them in full 
sunshine, in soil that is only moderately rich but sharply 
drained. They love the sun and the wind, and damp is ever a 
danger to them. Where this is suspected a collar of flat stones 
drawn about the crown, or a dressing of gravel over the ground 
about the plants will usually safeguard them through a wet win- 
ter. Cold has no terrors for most of them, nor has heat, if 
they are made otherwise comfortable; and once fairly settled 
they will self sow freely, catching a foothold in the most unlikely 
places. 
Papaver nudicaule, the Iceland Poppy, is better known than 
most of the wild Poppies, and of late some very fine strains of it 
have been introduced, notably Pearls of Dawn and Baker’s 
Sunbeam, which give us, in addition to the white, yellow, orange, 
and scarlet forms already possessed, the most lovely pink and 
apricot tones. P. nudicaule is a charming dwarf plant with 
sturdy rosettes of deeply lobed leaves and many blossoms carried 
on stems about twelve inches tall. Considered a perennial it 
is at best a short-lived one, sometimes dying off during the first 
winter. As it is a native of the Arctic Circle, however, it is safe 
to assume that cold has nothing to do with this apparent delicacy 
and that a lack of free drainage is much more apt to be the cause. 
Planted in light, rather gritty soil, in a position where sun and 
wind may reach them freely, these plants will be very fairly 
steadfast, and if too many seed pods are not allowed to form will 
give their lovely blossoms throughout the summer. If seed is 
sown early the plants will bloom the first year. 
Papaver alpinum is akin to the Iceland Poppy but more 
diminutive, more fugitive and more lovely. These are the wild 
Poppies of the Alps. They are to be found on t he high shingle of 
the moraines, their little tufts of finely cut gray leaves nestled 
among the stones, their fragile rounded blossoms on four-inch 
stems held boldly to the sun and wind ; and he who tries to tempt 
them with ordinary border conditions is courting speedy be- 
reavement. They are plants for the highest places that the 
garden affords — the heights of the rock garden, the top of a re- 
taining wall where the soil is gritty and free, the brow of a windy 
hill. On account of their long tap root they are particularly im- 
patient of disturbance, so if the seed be sown where the plants 
are to remain the best results will be obtained. There are 
several forms of the Alpine Poppy, but it takes a deal of 
patient searching through many catalogues to come by any 
but the type. There is P. Kerni, a very tiny form, and one with 
delicately fringed petals, and this spring I have a packet of P. 
rhaeticum, of which it is said, “The flowers are very fragrant 
and generally yellow, but are white on chalky ground.” One 
cannot but look forward with delight to a fragrant Poppy. 
P. rupifragum comes from the mountains of Spain. It is 
perfectly hardy and more reliably perennial than any Poppy of 
my acquaintance. Its handsome gray-green rosettes will estab- 
lish themselves anywhere, but in rich soil it produces a most 
ungainly length of wire-like stem topped by small, frail blossoms, 
whereas, kept to a strict diet, it remains nice and tufty, sending 
up a veritable fountain of bloom on stems of seemly length. 
P. rupifragum atlanticum, from Morocco, is much like the type 
save that the blossoms are scarlet instead of soft apricot color, 
and P. Heldreichi, said to belong to Asia Minor, is to me in- 
distinguishable from it. These gay-hued Poppies are delightful 
naturalized on sunny, rough banks in half wild places. Here 
they will self-sow and multiply and if they are given the com- 
panionship of blue and white Campanulas and Spiderworts and 
the sky-blue Flax a gay and charming effect may be maintained 
for many weeks. They may also be allowed the freedom of the 
garden where they will roam about forming many a happy asso- 
ciation and rescuing many an unlikely spot from bareness; but 
they are best denied a footing in the more select areas of the rock 
garden. 
P. caucasicum is much like the foregoing, but a little softer 
in color, a bit more compact of habit, if anything so airy as a 
Poppy may be said to be compact at all — altogether a more 
conservative plant and far better suited to the rock garden. 
Its tidy blue-green rosettes are extremely ornamental, and 
it is fully as hardy as rupifragum though quite elearly a 
biennial. 
P. tauricolor, a Levantine, is described by Mr. Farrar as re- 
sembling a coppery Meconopsis, which certainly sounds unusual 
and desirable. 1 once had a packet of the seed of this species 
but lost the young plants through some fatality before they were 
out of the frame. 
P. pilosum is a sturdy Greek mountaineer with a strong tuft 
of hoary leaves and tall, much-branched stems bearing several 
reddish-buff blossoms several inches across. A good plant for 
borders or rough banks, and very fairly perennial. 
P. californicum, a gay little annual from the Santa Inez moun- 
tains should be better known in its own land. It bears frail 
orange-red blossoms on very slender stems and is pretty enough 
to grace a corner of the rock garden or to flutter along the edges 
of the borders where it will keep itself going by self sowing. 
(Do not confuse with Eschscholtzia, usually known as the Cali- 
fornia Poppy.) 
P. pavonium, an annual from the sandy plains of Turkestan, 
is one of the best of its kind. Its habit is compact and neat and 
it bears in greatest profusion bright scarlet blossoms with an 
inner ring of black. “The flowers are peculiar in having tw« 
horns upon the sepals.” 
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